As a child, he attended the Carter G. Woodson Middle School.[3] Pinkleton also attended and graduated from The Appomattox Regional Governor's School for the Arts And Technology in Petersburg, Virginia, where he used to play the saxophone.[4]
He moved to New York City when he was age eighteen to attend New York University as a musical-theatre major, but later switched to the directing program instead.
Career
His first Broadway credit was in 2014 as assistant director, working on The Lyons by Nicky Silver. Pinkleton’s first choreography credit on Broadway was for a revival of Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal.
He started working on his most famous Broadway show, Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, in 2013, after seeing the first performance of it in 2012 at the Ars Nova theater in New York City. The director of the show, Rachel Chavkin, asked Pinkleton to help with staging the show for a bigger space, to which he agreed to do.[5]The Great Comet then had a third run at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, before finally transferring to Broadway. During its Broadway run, the show received twelve Tony Award nominations including Best Choreography for Pinkleton.
Some of his most recent work includes co-choreographing and co-directing a production of Head Over Heels at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California, along with Jenny Koons, as well as creating a cruise-ship show for Virgin Voyages titled Untitled DanceShowPartyThing with Ani Taj and Sunny Min-Sook Hitt.
In 2019, Pinkleton worked as an artist-in-residence at New York City's Pace University.[6]
Choreographic style
Pinkleton often talks about not having a style, but instead focusing on the current dancers he has and working with them to create something together. Pinkleton says that he never choreographs on his own body, and tries to use the previous experience and special abilities of the actors to inspire his movement.[7]
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